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Thursday, February 7, 2013

MYSTERY, MISERY, MASTERY



                   “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." Rumi

Mystery, Misery, Mastery 

Inside,
above ground,
calm as the night—
it always seems like twilight
inside
your mother--
soft, warm, and tight.

A zipper straight down the middle,
an amniotic sac breaks open.
It was a cesarean section,
opening the belly to the sky.
Outside low thick clouds
are white wings awakening
an arrival.

Holding close is a life,
delivered from a water bag
Breathing air, body of blood,
cheek pressed to her swollen breast.

Life shares her first breath with the living.
Death shares each heaving breath
with the dying.

She remembers when she was just a girl,
sitting on the foyer steps,
distant church bells, her doorbell rings,
the body bag arrives;
the men walked in,
and leave with the corpse of a man.
Cold, stiff, dead, she remembers; it is the last
time her father would be leaving.
She curls her body in a sleeping bag,
zippers it closed and remembers
to stop crying.
 
Back packs,
purses, storage bags
containing the remains of one’s life.
Life considers a life, hospice, and
just down the corridor is a gurney rolling to
retrieve a person’s failed bones.
The body bag is earth’s final destination,
a zipper runs down the middle, outside,
a resting place underground.
TJKG

7 comments:

  1. Thank you for reading my blog Madeleine. Death is a powerful motivator

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  2. A strong write. Death so hard to accept. It took me back to losing my dad. Good capture. On a lighter note I love the name of your blog.

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  3. This is so intense -I love the ay you use the zipper to zip (ahem, bad pun!) it all together too.

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  4. "Life shares her first breath with the living. Death shares each heaving breath with the dying." Those are powerful words. The whole poem is powerful...sad...intense...real.

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  5. wow...from birth to death...the zipper is such a tangible thought too in your poem...and ends rather ominous feeling as well...

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  6. people as luggage =)
    the worms will unpack for new life.

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